No, I'm not a Redguard
by Cthulujr
Summary: Prophet was ready to die fighting the Ceph, but the suit is possessive, and won't let him go that easily. Now, he wanders a frozen wasteland, trying to lend a hand towards a world just as threatened as his own.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

Lucan Valerius had seen many different people walk through the simple, weathered door that lead to his shop. Members of all races and professions had come to haggle with him during the years, buying and selling family trinkets, personal crafts, weaponry, armor, and other small odds and ends. Yes, Lucan had seen a lot in his time, but nothing quite like the strange man who had entered his small store just before closing time.

The splashes of the rain outside grew muted as the stranger gently closed the wooden door after entering the shop. He took a small glance around, before walking over to the counter. The old, cracked stone that made up Lucan's flooring created no noise as the stranger stepped over it. There was no sound to indicate he was there at all: not a breath of air, nor rustling of his clothes, nor jingling of coin. The man might have had an affinity for illusion magic, and Lucan certainly hoped it was the case. He always preferred to hear the sound of septims brushing against one another, as it would indicate a potential customer and not a lone soul seeking shelter from the weather after being turned away from Delphine's inn for lack of coin.

He was clad in nothing save a thin, dirty cloak over what appeared to be simple rags, but there was something… _off_ about the stranger. Something that just made Lucan's skin crawl just by being in the same room. His hopes of selling or buying anything of value were slowly dwindling, but he had been surprised before. So, he put aside his nervousness and placed on his charming smile, perfected over the years, and greeted the man.

"Welcome to the Riverwood Trader, customer. Feel free to browse for anything you might like."

The redguard, for with his skin color he could be nothing else, glanced around the shop briefly before dismissing the wares and refocusing on Lucan. His eyes stood out to Lucan, and didn't look like any of the eyes found from the races of man. They were an unnatural blue, with an unnatural coloration that led him to believe the man was a half breed of some sort.

"I need information," the stranger asked quietly, in an accent Lucan had never heard before. How foreign was this stranger?

He reached to his side and pulled out a pouch before Lucan could respond, and placed it onto the wooden counter between them. The stranger wore no gloves, and, though it wasn't cold enough to snow this time of year, it was still wet outside and more than cold enough to kill a man. Was he half nord by chance?

Dibella's tits, he really hoped this man wasn't apart of the Dark Brotherhood. In the pouch was a small amount of coin, and Lucan really hoped he didn't intend to bribe him with it. The money wasn't worth dealing with certain groups. Was he involved with the people who stole his claw?

"Well, uh, _valued_ customer, that depends on what you want to know. I may be a trader, but I still have standards I will uphold," he responded quickly, while subtlety moving his arm under the counter, within reach of the dagger there in the event that the man proved violent.

"Do you have any maps?"

"Maps?" Lucan repeated unsurely, despite the fact that he knew there were several in the shop.

"Yes," he began slowly. It was getting slightly easier to think around the stranger. "I think I might have a few."

He gently removed his arm from its ready position and hoped he was right in assuming the stranger was just a new adventurer. He then walked over to a nearby shelf below the counter, where he organized the books and reached for the three maps stored there. He placed the rolls of paper on the counter, and unfolded them so they took up most of the space.

"This one is local," he showed off the first one, "and is a copy of one by a personal friend of mine. This one covers all of Skyrim, though it only shows the major cities and landmarks, and this one was from a dunmer that was busy exploring around Dawnstar, he was a bit… well, strange, but he drew good maps. You're welcome to take any of these." He left it unsaid that he would have had a good deal, even if he gave all three maps to the stranger. There was no point in giving items up without a fight, verbally of course.

He finished showing them to the potential customer, and, without the comforting familiarity of talking business, the nervousness returned once more. It wasn't helped by the man across from him, who said nothing, but only stared hard at the maps for several seconds.

"No, this can't be right," the stranger whispered. He removed his gaze from the maps and placed it on Lucan instead.

"Where are we?" Oh, by the Eight. He hoped the man wasn't mad.

"Riverwood," Lucan responded slowly, pointing to its location on the two maps that showed it.

"No, I," visible frustration passed over the man's face. He looked at the second map with pursed lips. "Where is Skyrim?"

Yep, he was mad, but he was also paying.

"On the continent of Tamriel, " Lucan said, doing his best to hide the disbelief from his voice. "Did you, ah, hit your head recently by any chance, stranger?" he asked as politely as he could, given the circumstances.

"I… yes. Yesterday," the redguard replied after a brief pause. The man was doing his best to keep calm. Lucan was mildly skeptical of the claim, but the stranger was honest in his confusion. Lucan had experience with people trying to con him, and this was by far the worst attempt if the man was faking it.

"Well… Talos's piss," Lucan replied. Now he _had_ to do something. His sister wouldn't be back until later, but he was sure she'd find out somehow, and he wouldn't hear the end of it if he sent the stranger out with nothing.

"Ok," he sighed and ran a hand down his face, "follow me then."

He walked around the counter and grabbed a bottle of mead off the shelf. He then took a seat at the nearby table before gesturing for the stranger to do the same. The wooden chair creaked dangerously as the stranger settled into it. Was the man half orc to weigh so much?

Lucan opened the bottle and poured some into his cup before indicating to the cup on the other side of the table. The man eyed it momentarily before shaking his head minutely. Lucan only shrugged in response.

"More for me then. Let no man say Lucan Valerius isn't accommodating," he stated as he drank from his cup. "Alright stranger, how much do you remember? Your name, birthplace, first kiss?"

He repressed another shiver as the man's eyes bored into his own with a calculating intensity. He felt as if he was being judged by an Aedra… or a Daedra. A second later and the moment was over. The man touched his fingers over the bare skin of the opposite forearm, looking at his skin with a strange expression.

"My name… is Laurence Barnes."

"Well… that's good you remember that. I've never heard a name like that before" Lucan said awkwardly. Laurence seemed genuine at least, in his confusion over the maps, but there was still the pervasive wrongness lingering around him.

Lucan had no intention of staying up too late, so he did his best to summarize the most useful common sense he could to Laurence. Don't piss off The Divine, The Dark Brotherhood, The Thieves Guild, or the Empire. Don't steal from giants, and don't accept any moon sugar from strangers. That, and a few more other useful bits of history and general information, should be enough to at least prevent some of the preventable deaths.

When Lucan was done, Laurence-no longer a complete stranger-was silent, only looking into the firelight to his right. He turned back to Lucan with a contemplating face.

"Do you know where I can find more information? Any books available?"

"Books? Well, if you found a lord, they would have some. Not that they would show you or me," Lucan replied with a scoff. "You might have more luck with the college of Winterhold, though I don't know if you're a mage. They only take those talented in the arcane."

"Mage?" Laurence asked in confusion.

"Oh, you don't remember that either," Laurence replied. He was slightly doubtful as to the extent of what Laurence did and did not know, but, if he didn't rob and/or attack Lucan, then he felt no need to question it. He felt uncomfortable enough just talking to him right now. Maybe Laurence was half dunmer? Lucan always felt weird talking to them.

"You'll have to ask someone else. I don't really know anything about it, besides how much the spell tomes go for."

Laurence's eyes drove straight through Lucan in a manner that made him incredibly nervous. Had he said something wrong? That stare was unnerving, and seemed to see things beyond what humans could. Was he half khajit? It would make sense with his earlier silence, though he lacked the fur.

"You're serious," Laurence finally spoke up, in a state of disbelief.

He placed his hands over his face and took in a deep breath. He placed his arms back down to his side and stood up.

"Thank you," he said honestly, "but I think I'll be going."

Lucan frowned, had he said something wrong? Laurence was frustrated about something.

"Where are you going?" Lucan's question caused the ever silent redguard to pause at the door. He turned around, contemplating.

"I have no idea," he responded over the pouring rain.

"So, you're going outside underdressed, without food or drink, and expecting things to work out?" Lucan asked with a raised eyebrow.

Laurence frowned in response, hesitating.

"I'll be fine. I just need to figure out what to do."

By the Eight, he was going to get himself killed. Lucan looked over at the maps Laurence seemed uninterested in, along with the bag of coin on the counter. There was an internal struggle going on in him right now. Son of a milk drinking Dremora, why did his sister have to rub off on him so much?

"Here," Lucan responded, handing the pouch back. He took a breath as Laurence glanced at the pouch curiously. "I have a few odd jobs that need doing. Simple tasks to make a few ends meet, that sort of thing. If you want to do them, there's your first payment. You start tomorrow. Otherwise, take it anyway, run off, and don't get yourself killed."

Lucan didn't wait to see his response, but instead begin rolling up the maps and put them away. He called out over the counter.

"Either way, you should have enough to go to the inn and rent a room for the night. You can show up here tomorrow or be on your way."

He finally finished organizing the shelf as the rain increased in volume with the now open door. There was another honest thank you mumbled by Laurence as he slipped outside and closed the door. The feeling of being observed by something strange finally left with Laurence.

Lucan sighed, he was already starting to regret his decision, but his path was chosen. Hopefully this wasn't all for nothing. Maybe Laurence was half imperial to get such a good deal out of the situation; Lucan was certainly questioning his own judgment and morals right now. He began closing up, extinguishing the flames of the candles in the building. He finally snapped his fingers in the darkness of the store, the rain his only company as he tapped on the counter.

Half mer, with those eyes he had to have been half mer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

He remembered looking at the Ceph warship, and being filled with a foreboding sense of doom. A suffocating feeling of failure choked him through the suit, before the memories of those he fought besides urged him to perform one final act.

He remembered firing Archangel at the ship, a desperate last stand. The super weapon's power generation was reverse engineered from the same invaders it was being used to destroy, and Prophet swore he could feel the heat coming off the immensely-powerful beam, even through the vacuum of space and the suit.

He remembered tumbling through space as the wormhole collapsed with an explosion of energy. He lacked the propulsion to challenge gravity, and fell directly towards the nearest planetary body that he thought was Earth.

He remembered feeling like he was burned alive, and for all intents and purposes, he was. The suit was his skin, just as his skin was the suit. He felt the damage sustained, as friction with the atmosphere ignited the nanotubes over his outer shell. The pain was immense, and SECOND was offline as the suit was rebooting.

He remembered the reprieve dying gave him, for he was sure that he died. He blacked out multiple times as he sped towards the ground, before finally going unconscious as he struck the ground at near terminal velocity.

He remembered the dreams, as the suit revived him, from either mortal injury or actual death. He didn't need to sleep. He hadn't needed to for a long, long time. The rare moments when he was damaged enough to shut down-like the machine he was-were the only times he could dream; they were not pleasant. They were recordings of everything he had done and regretted. The deaths of Raptor team, losing the fight against cell, dying… it weighed heavily on his mind as SECOND jump started his mind.

He remembered waking up with a gasp, in a boiling puddle of water, surrounded by ice. He chose to remain there until the suit booted up fully, content with his job. He had stopped the Ceph. Him, Michael, and everyone else involved in the fight against them, they had succeeded. He accepted death when he joined the US Army. He accepted it when he donned the suit for the first time. He accepted it when he committed suicide out of necessity. He accepted it every time he failed and almost failed, but the suit never granted him that reprieve.

It was a jealous son of a bitch, and it refused to let him go after all these years. It always had a way of bringing him back to share in its misery. They were joined so closely at this point that it was hard to tell if there even was a line between them now. Was he a man controlling a suit, or a suit controlling a man? The line may have fully dissolved when he unlocked the nanites, which shifted to his subconscious desire after fully rebooting, courtesy of SECOND.

Prophet had a love/hate relationship with the AI that resided in his head. It was just intelligent enough to learn and be useful, but it was dumb enough to be annoyingly vague at times and completely useless as a conversational partner. There was also the muted fear in the back of his mind, because his control over SECOND was not absolute.

Even still, this time it made a good decision. Prophet ignored the icy forest that surrounded him in lieu of looking at his face. His _actual_ face gazed back at him from the puddle of water he sat in. He watched the nanites shift, reminding him of what he was, before they stopped, fully flushed with the shape of his face.

He gently felt his face with his hands, feeling the sensation of actual skin through the suit. The tactile sensory information present made the suit actual skin by any definition, and he felt everything through it like he was born with it on. Though, in many ways, he _was_ born with the suit on.

He finally dropped his hands off his face and into the slowly-freezing puddle. His left hand bumped into a metallic object just under the surface. He lifted it up to see Jester's dog tag in front of the rest of Raptor team's fallen. A strange bitter-sweet guilt rose up in him at the sight of the slightly-charred metal, reminders of team mates he failed to save.

He stood up and left the tags in the puddle, steam no longer emanating from his frame. He left it there as a mark that he and Raptor team moved on. They had done their job and saved Earth, and didn't need to do anything more.

His HUD displayed the surrounding environment, but there were no indicators of his location besides the temperature, a chilly 21 degrees below zero. His GPS was unresponsive, though Prophet was unsurprised. He could have been in a remote area, or the Ceph warship's destruction might very well have damaged any remaining satellites.

Around him were pine trees, covered in snow, that adorned the angled landscape. He was on a mountain of some kind, most likely in northern North America or Europe. He passively scanned for electronic frequencies as he began to scale down the mountain as best he could. All the while, he sent out his own radio signal, trying to pick up any possible allies.

There were no responses at all, something slightly concerning. The complete silence over the frozen landscape, save the wind, felt much too like Lingshan to make him feel comfortable. He made a mental promise to move to the equator when he officially retired; he was totally fine not seeing snow for the rest of his life.

He carefully slid down, his enhanced legs having no issues with absorbing the kinetic impact from big falls. His feet and hands might have looked like human skin, but they weren't, and the nanites were more than capable of forming textures that increased traction on the wet, rocky ground.

His loose, white shirt and jeans shifted into a coat and proper pants as he gradually lowered his altitude. He didn't feel the cold, or at least suffered no damage from it, but it wouldn't do to give away that something was off as soon as someone spotted him.

The blizzard that waged around him reduced his visibility drastically, but compared to running from a Ceph pinger, or trying to fight a devastator solo, this was easy. He continued dropping for the better part of an hour before he finally came across signs of civilization.

He dropped down a steep slope once again, his left hand dragged behind him, scraping the rock beneath to slow him down, while his feet did the same from the front. He pushed off the face and landed in a crouch in the middle of what looked like a man made trail. There was a carved stone post near the side, with a tattered cloth attached, the first signs that someone other than him had ever been here.

There were no visible footprints that he could on the thin layer of snow, so he chose the direction that lead down. He hated a lot of things about the nanosuit, but the physical boost definitely wasn't one of them. He wandered the path for another half hour at a fairly slow rate for him, scanning for life and pushing aside any questions about the aftermath of what he'd done.

Cell lost every facet of its power base with the destruction of the Alpha Ceph, and they would be demolished entirely by their large number of enemies. Their tendrils of political and economic power would be denied to them by the people they had alienated through debt. Their predatory business practices were nearly as bad as their tampering with Ceph technology. Prophet let out a breath in disgust. He felt no sympathy for Cell's fate, after all he'd seen them do in New York.

He paused in his trek as he picked up a quiet laughter through the storm. The snowy air gave way to an old, stone structure just ahead. His enhanced ears picked up the sound of a fire, along with the breathing of three different people inside, two females and one male.

He walked forward slowly, before he found the entrance to the structure. It was nothing more than a hole in the wall covered by an animal skin, but there were people inside. Prophet intended to ask for directions to the nearest city. The sooner he could get access to any form of working communications, the better.

He knocked on the stone to get the attention of the inhabitants within. He succeeded, and the inside grew quiet as he heard shuffling from within. The curtain of tanned flesh parted to reveal a severely-underdressed man holding a battle axe.

The man leered at Prophet, sizing him up with a smile. SECOND immediately identified multiple signs of aggression, the low levels of alcohol in the man's breath, and the strange heat levels coming off him.

"Bad day to get lost _friend_ ," he responded in accented English, which itself was accented by a raised axe, a step forward, and an attempted swing.

Prophet paused momentarily, at a loss as to what was going on. Alcohol explained the behavior, the axe, and the lack of clothing on the man, but his body wasn't losing heat nearly as fast as it should. The more absurd fact was that the man was attempting to swing at him in the first place, though he didn't know what Prophet was.

Prophet had been stabbed, shot, electrocuted, crushed, cut, burnt, frozen, pierced, and _killed_ by both aliens and humans, but half naked men running at him with axes was certainly a new experience.

He stepped forward readily, his body running off a completely different time table compared to the assailant, still mid swing. He gripped the weapon firmly with his left hand before disarming the man and pushing him to the ground by the shoulder.

Something was off about everything, but maybe he could leave the man unconscious until he was in the right state of mind, then ask important questions like "Where is the nearest town?" and "Why did you swing an axe at me?"

There was a rustle from inside as Prophet paid attention to the other two. They looked at Prophet, holding the prone man down with a single foot, and immediately attacked without a word. They were not inebriated, and Prophet understood that he may have misjudged the situation. Not when the female on the right loaded an arrow into an old-fashioned bow, but when the one on the left held out a hand.

He was readying a plan to disarm all of the them safely and interrogate them for information, but the woman on the left shot that plan down. He watched as a bolt of electricity flew from her hand and struck him in the chest.

He stumbled, half from shock-a quarter of which was an amperage high enough to be felt through his suit, and another quarter from the surprise of seeing a human being perform a successful Palpatine impression-and half from the man beneath him attempting to dislodge his foot.

" **Warning. Unknown energy source detected. Threat detected.** "

He felt his muscles tense with energy as the familiar chemical balancing of SECOND came into effect. Distractions were washed away as his adrenaline spiked in response to a perceived threat. Time slowed down further as the blood flow increased to his brain. His pulse spiked-or started-to carry oxygen to his muscles, fully augmenting his strength as nanobots amplified each of his remaining biological processes in sync with the synthetic counterparts.

In a single second Prophet was replaced with a super soldier wearing a billon dollar piece of hardware. The nanites shifted back to the suit's original form to provide the maximum combat effectiveness as a plan formed in his mind.

He executed it in three steps. The first carried him forward and away from the man beneath him. The second involved him swinging his left arm in a predetermined arc. The axe he had confiscated was released through the doorway at speeds approaching a professionally-thrown baseball. The archer attempted to dodge it as she panic fired an arrow that was off the mark, but it only resulted in the axe hitting her forehead instead of throat.

The final step was to close the distance between him and the physics-defying bitch. His legs propelled him forward, far faster than any human could achieve, and he crossed the 20 feet between them in less than half a second. She had just enough time to back peddle, eyes widening as she switched from shooting lightning to creating a force field in front of her.

He shook off his surprise, lowered his shoulder, and struck the barrier head on. His momentum was cut significantly, but he pushed through whatever strange energy she was using. He was close enough for the speed loss to no longer be important. His lack of weapon resulted in him quickly grabbing her head, before she could resist, and twisting it 180 degrees around.

He paused as he felt the hyper perceptions fade away with the lull in combat. He ignored what he had done, before reaching down and gripping her wrist, before bringing it close to his eyes and running every scan he could on it. What the hell was _that_? The last person to shoot energy out of their hands at him was Rasch, and he was infected by the Ceph when he did that.

Electricity was not harmful to nanosuits directly without massive quantities, but he'd seen the effectiveness of EMP grenades at slowing down a user. It gave organized troops the time needed to accurately hit the superhumanly fast suits.

She had fired something strong enough to kill a man outright, likely paralyze a first generation nanosuit for a few seconds, and even give him momentary pause. Where there was one, there was more. He needed to find out how this was accomplished….

 _Nothing_. She shot _lightning_ out of her hand, and there was no detectable anomalies externally or internally. There was no technology on her person, nor inside her arm. Prophet stood up and shook his head, his heightened olfactory senses could detect the faint traces of ozone. He knew what he saw, but there was no way to explain it. There were too many unknowns.

A slightly rustling in the snow gained his attention. He walked towards the remaining member he had left alive for questioning, who had stood up and was attempting to run away when he saw the aftermath of the fight. Prophet outpaced him easily enough, and dragged him towards the wall. The man was mumbling profusely, repeating the name "Daedra" over and over again.

Prophet pressed the man into the stone wall firmly, with a hand on the shoulder. He didn't need SECOND's analysis to see the man was terrified. Prophet knew-first hand-that the suit had a strange effect on people. Hell, sometimes it felt like he'd had weapons drawn on him by as many allies as enemies. He looked at the man and did his best to sound calm, but stern. Cooperation would smooth things along.

"What's your name, son?"

There was no response, only panicked breathing and a frightened stare. Prophet's captive was a cornered animal in this situation, frozen and incredibly tense. He could not flee nor fight, so he did nothing.

Prophet snapped his fingers and dug his fingers a little harder into the man's shoulder. The pain seemed to give way to mental clarity as he flinched.

"M… Morgvir."

"Ok, Morgvir," Prophet repeated the foreign-sounding name, "I need to ask you a few questions, and then I'll decide what to do with you after, alright?"

The man looked at his blood-red visor before deciding the floor was much more pleasing. His breathing remained rapid, though it had steadied out.

"Very… well."

"What was that?" Prophet asked, wasting no time at getting an answer to his burning question.

Morgvir followed his finger to his dead ally. He cringed before hesitating.

"We survive by taking goods from travellers in the area."

Prophet shoot his head.

"No, I'm asking how the _hell_ she shot lightning out of her fingers," he in frustration, his voice getting louder.

"She's a mage! She's a mage!" Morgvir answered, panic evident in his voice.

SECOND scanned his vitals to determine he was telling what he believed to be the truth. Prophet sighed, maybe it was a local word? Further questioning led to similar answers, ones that made no sense out of context. When the hell was the 15th of Last Seed, year 201 of the fourth era? Where the hell was the Throat of the World and Skyrim? Prophet would have believed he was getting bullshitted if Morgvir wasn't clearly terrified and saying statements he believed were true. It was more likely Morgvir was just insane. That made the most sense.

It finally came time to decide Morgvir's fate, something the aforementioned man noticed and became incredibly afraid of.

"Don't kill me! Please! I'll turn my life around! I swear on the Eight!" He spat rapid fire, ignoring his fear to plead directly to Prophet's visor.

Prophet considered his options. The man had attacked him, and he'd seen the suit. Killing him was the easiest way keep him quiet, something SECOND agreed with and approved of. He was tired of fighting though, tired of killing aliens and humans. One more wasn't a big difference in the overall count, but he could hear Michael as if he was right next to him.

" _You might as well be a fucking machine._ "

He sighed again.

"Where's the nearest city?"

Morgvir paused in his begging to stutter out.

"Riverwood."

Prophet nodded and released his grip on the man's shoulder.

"Alright, show the me the way there. If your serious about this, we'll figure something out."

Morgvir dropped to his knees, folded his hands, and tossed out thank yous like they were mass produced. Prophet looked around at the old items in the room before looking back at his new, still praying guide.

Great, now he needed to babysit someone who was clearly mentally unstable and should have froze to death minutes ago.


End file.
